Campaigns are a marathon and not a sprint, says Elin Price, senior external comms lead at the DVLA – who will be explaining how she kept the drum beat going with low cost activity at this year’s LGComms Public Services Communications Academy.
The moment you get approval to spend money on a government advertising campaign can be a time of conflicting emotions…
On one hand, you’re chuffed to bits that the hard work you put into the business case, the research, the audience segmentation and planning has paid off.
On the other hand, there’s the daunting realisation that you now have to deliver what you laid out, on time, on budget, and whilst doing your day job. I experienced all of the above when we had our approval for a campaign to target car tax evaders in 12 UK regions.
We had lots of work to do to get this up and running…
…and the hard work didn’t stop when the campaign launched. Once up and running, all campaigns need regular injections of care and attention to keep them running smoothly – especially when it comes to the no cost activity.
Keeping the momentum going with no cost activity can be a challenge over a sustained period and I’ll be talking more about the no cost challenge at this year’s LGComms Public Service Communications Academy, including how to sustain the message through non-paid for activity using PR, social media channels, face to face events and stunts and partner endorsement and some of the principles we applied to keep the drumbeat going.